USA: Trump Drastically Weakens Protection for Endangered Species
Is it worth protecting a habitat when valuable raw materials lie beneath the ground? Such considerations will play a greater role in the United States in the future. Because the historic conservation law that has previously helped answer that question will soon no longer exist in its current form. The US government of President Donald Trump has weakened the regulation.
The changes to the 1973 Endangered Species Act, unveiled on Monday, include a provision that would eliminate the automatic granting of the same protection status to threatened and endangered species.
The government also struck language from the law stipulating that economic factors should play no role in classifying a species as threatened. The changes published on Monday are set to take effect in September.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt described the changes as “improvements.” They would ensure an “efficient” implementation of the law, said the former oil lobbyist. He had written in an opinion piece for the «Washington Post» the previous year that the law in its existing form was an “unnecessary regulatory burden” on businesses.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the amendments reflected the President's directive to ease regulations in the environmental sector while at the same time ensuring the protection of endangered species.
Conservationists, however, fear the gradual destruction of the habitat of endangered and threatened species. The non-governmental organization Earthjustice described the changes as a “gift to industry” and announced it would file a lawsuit. The Sierra Club accused the government of placing economic interests above scientific findings.
Trump's Interior Dept just released major cuts to one of the most effective laws in American history: the Endangered Species Act. Tell them to leave our animals and wild spaces ALONE: #StopExtinction
Activists fear that the extraction of raw materials, such as timber, gas, or oil, could be made easier in particularly sensitive areas in the future. The Trump administration had already rolled back numerous other environmental protection regulations.
The regulation dates back to another unpopular president
The law titled the “Endangered Species Act” was signed in 1973 by the then Republican President Richard Nixon. It enabled the recovery of populations of wolves and bald eagles, among others.
Many Republican politicians have long taken issue with it, as they see it as containing too many regulations. Environmentalists, on the other hand, celebrate it as a success because it has prevented the extinction of numerous species . Currently, the agency «Fish and Wildlife Service» lists more than 2’000 animal and plant species in the United States as threatened or endangered.
